George J. Adams
George J. Adams | |
---|---|
![]() Adams c. 1841 | |
Founder of the Church of the Messiah | |
1861 | |
Member of the First Presidency in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite). | |
1846 – 1851 | |
Called by | James Strang |
End reason | Excommunicated from the Strangite church |
Member of the Council of Fifty | |
Between Mar. 14 and Apr. 11, 1844 – February 4, 1845 | |
Called by | Joseph Smith |
End reason | Excommunicated from LDS Church |
Personal details | |
Born | George Jones Adams c. 1811 typhoid pneumonia " |
George Jones Adams (c. 1811 – May 11, 1880) was the leader of a schismatic Latter Day Saint sect who led an ill-fated effort to establish a colony of Americans in Palestine. Adams was also briefly a member of the First Presidency in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite). In preparation for colonizing Palestine, he changed his name to George Washington Joshua Adams, to tie himself to two well-known country builders: George Washington of the United States and Joshua, from the Hebrew Bible.
Conversion and early church service
George Jones Adams was born in
While traveling from
In October 1843,
Back in Boston in 1847, Adams was the main witness in the trial of Cobb v. Cobb, in which Henry Cobb sued his wife, Augusta Adams Cobb, for divorce, for having committed adultery with Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young; she had married Young in November 1843 without first divorcing Henry. The court case went to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, presided over by Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, and was widely reported in newspapers nationwide.[citation needed]
Strangite leader
After his excommunication, Adams came to accept the spiritual leadership of
Church of the Messiah
By the late 1850s, Adams had established a church in
Settlement in Palestine
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2023) |
Adams' friendship with Orson Hyde heavily influenced his decision to move to Palestine. Hyde was the first Mormon envoy to Jerusalem, and Adams "dreamed of replicating Hyde's pilgrimage to the Holy Land."[2] After migrating around the Northeast for some years, Adams settled in Indian River, Maine, and prophesied that the prerequisite the Second Coming was "the Jews' restoration to Palestine."[2]
In 1865, Adams and Indian River's postmaster, Abraham McKenszie, traveled to Palestine and arranged for the purchase of a tract of land near Jaffa.[2] Upon returning to the United States, Adams organized the Palestine Emigration Association to coordinate his church's move. In February 1866, Adams was received by U.S. President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward at the White House.[citation needed] Seward agreed to expedite a petition from Adams and his church members to the government of the Ottoman Empire to ensure that the American settlers' title to the land Adams arranged to purchase was respected.
One hundred and fifty-six members of the Church of the Messiah sailed from Boston to Jaffa on the Nellie Chapin, arriving on September 22, 1866. The colony began by camping on the beach, relying on local
The pilgrims secured a 10-acre (40,000 m2) plot of land outside of Jaffa, where they founded the American Colony, named Amelican in
But their leader Adams withheld their money, which the colonists had earlier conveyed to him. So the missionary Peter Metzler of the
Some of the colonists traveled back to America on the ship Quaker City; Mark Twain was a passenger on the same journey and he wrote about the failed settlers in his 1869 book The Innocents Abroad.[5] Upon returning to the United States, many of Adams' former followers joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In June 1868, Adams and his wife left Palestine and sailed to England. Twenty of the original colonists remained in Palestine, some of them permanently.
The colonists who left would sell much of their real estate in the colony to newly arriving settlers, called
Return to America and death
Although Adams preached briefly in
Notes
- ^ a b c D. Michael Quinn (1994). The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books) p. 534.
- ^ a b c Michael Oren (2007). Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton & Company) p. 220.
- ^ Michael Oren (2007). Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton & Company) p. 224.
- ISBN 965-7109-03-5
- ^ But I am forgetting the Jaffa Colonists. At Jaffa we had taken on board some forty members of a very celebrated community. They were male and female; babies, young boys and young girls; young married people, and some who had passed a shade beyond the prime of life. I refer to the "Adams Jaffa Colony." Others had deserted before. We left in Jaffa Mr. Adams, his wife, and fifteen unfortunates who not only had no money but did not know where to turn or whither to go. Such was the statement made to us. Our forty were miserable enough in the first place, and they lay about the decks seasick all the voyage, which about completed their misery, I take it. However, one or two young men remained upright, and by constant persecution we wormed out of them some little information. They gave it reluctantly and in a very fragmentary condition, for, having been shamefully humbugged by their prophet, they felt humiliated and unhappy. In such circumstances people do not like to talk..
- ISBN 965-7109-03-5
- ^ Philadelphia Public Ledger, 1880-05-13, p. 8.
References
- Peter Amann, "Prophet in Zion: The Saga of George J. Adams", New England Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 4 (1964) pp. 477–500
- Reed M. Holmes (2003). Dreamers of Zion: Joseph Smith and George J. Adams (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press) ISBN 1-84519-204-4
- Mark Twain (1869). The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress (New York: Modern Library, 2003) ISBN 0-8129-6705-4
- ISBN 0-393-05826-3